


The Intricate Art of the Spite Selfie (or, Say What You Mean)

by obstinateRixatrix, Reliquary



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: 5+1 Things, M/M, Selfies, art-based, basically the least disastrous way they can end together, except it's more 1+1+5 related to the first thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-25
Updated: 2018-01-25
Packaged: 2019-03-09 06:05:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13475268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/obstinateRixatrix/pseuds/obstinateRixatrix, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reliquary/pseuds/Reliquary
Summary: The first selfie Lance takes with Keith, the first selfie Keith takes with Lance, and a few of Lance's many, many selfies that follow.





	The Intricate Art of the Spite Selfie (or, Say What You Mean)

**Author's Note:**

> Hey yall, a looooong while ago I made [this post](http://obstinaterixatrix.tumblr.com/post/156875477724) and this has been in progress for A While. This is! A fic-art collab with my very good pal Lex! there's gonna be some of my placeholder ms paint doodles! But! She's gonna add some of her great art later because, y'know, time differences! And here’s a PSA!
> 
> DON’T REPOST ART WITHOUT PERMISSION
> 
> even if you repost with credit some folks still feel uncomfortable! different artists have different boundaries! you can’t assume what they are! it’s ok if you’re like, oh, shoot, I didn’t realize, we’re all learning always, but here’s the lesson! you’ve learned now! so respect artists because it’s the right thing to do! or I’ll put your head in a jar of wasps and shoot you into the sun! a link to Lex's wonderful art on tumblr is gonna be added later, but I had to post now because today's the 9 year anniversary of when I posted my first fic! I'm very excited about it! don't repost her art. [here's her art blog!](http://cosmickratzer.tumblr.com)
> 
> -Stella
> 
> hello ao3 i’m lex and as a disclaimer heres a self drag: i am the reason this fic did not come out half a year ago. now, in the gregorian year of our lord two thousand and eight teen, please enjoy stella’s dope-as-hell klance content that i (VERY SLOWLY) took great pride in illustrating. peace ✌
> 
> -Lex

 

* * *

1.

* * *

 

Being sick is pretty terrible. Being sick in space is, somehow, even worse. On Earth, Keith was left to his own devices and free to handle misery on his own terms. In space? Apparently, everyone can hear him sneeze. Which is an invitation for everyone to share very strong opinions on how exactly he should be taking care of himself.

“You could at least be lying down,” Pidge says, leaning over her backwards-facing chair. Technically _his_ backwards-facing chair, since they’re trapped in his room. “The whole point of this is for you to get some rest.”

“I thought the point of this was to keep everyone else from getting sick.”

“A great way to keep everyone from getting sick is for you to get better as soon as possible,” she points out, unreasonably logical. “Sick people are supposed to sleep more. Trust me, you're going to regret it if you don't.”

“I’m not tired,” Keith insists, crossing his arms as he slumps against the wall. Just because he’s confined to the bed doesn’t mean he has to use it. “Don't you have anything better to do?”

“There’s a lot I’d rather be doing, but that can wait until we’re sure you’re not going to wander off. Until then,” she gestures at some Altean tablet-type gadget she's holding, “I’ve got some light reading to catch up on. Sorry, Keith— can’t scare me off with boredom.”

Keith rolls his eyes, resigned to quiet inactivity. It’d be nice if he had some way of being productive, but he's been banned from basically anything that involves movement. It sucks.

He’ll never admit it, but Keith actually does drift in and out of consciousness, even while sitting up. He doesn't snap back into full awareness until the door slides open. A familiar, _way_ too cheerful voice calls, “What’s up! How’s quarantine been treating everyone?” Then, without waiting for a response, “Wow, you look _awful_.” Lance even has the audacity to laugh.

“No,” Keith says, dread clutching at his chest. Or it’s the need to cough. But coughing leads to more fussing, which he’s absolutely had enough of, especially if _Lance_ is next on Keith-watch. Keith turns to Pidge. “Don’t leave me with him,” he says, uncomfortably close to begging.

“Sorry,” she says, sounding anything but. “I’ve got better things to do. Should've slept when you had the chance.” She walks out of the door, not even a backwards glance of sympathy.

“So, Keith,” Lance starts, not giving him any time to mourn the last second of Pidge’s blissfully silent chaperoning, “you know those phone-things Allura gave us? Guess what!”

“No.”

“Turns out,” Lance says, and after a completely unnecessary pause, he announces, “it's got a camera!” with all the theatricality of some excitable door-to-door salesman.

“Great.” Keith puts every ounce of sarcasm he can muster into that one word. It's not great.

“Glad you think so!” Lance chirps, clearly just being a little shit. “After all, you have the honor of being in my first space-selfie!”

“You’re not seriously making this the first picture you take, are you?” Keith asks, incredulous. Not that he can’t believe it, but _really?_

“Are you kidding? This is the _perfect_ occasion for a first space-selfie! The great and mighty Keith, humbled by a space-cold. Say cheese!” Lance slings his arm over Keith’s shoulder, holding out the device in front of them. It clicks.

“Get that out of my face,” Keith snaps. Or, he tries to, but half the sentence gets swallowed up by his throat and comes out as a hacking cough. Lance gives his back a few solid whacks, before pouring a glass of water.

“Y’know, I wouldn’t be on babysitting duty if you weren’t awful at taking care of yourself,” he points out. “How much have you been drinking? This pitcher’s almost full! Everyone knows you’re supposed to keep yourself hydrated when you're sick!” He lets out a huff, shaking his head. “Honestly, you need some eagle-eyed supervision. In fact, maybe I should just take over for the rest of the day!”

It's obviously a bluff— no way Lance would willingly confine himself to one room longer than he has to— but Keith can't help but rise to the bait. “I’ll get you sick,” he threatens. He even coughs again, and while it’d be nice if it was some advanced intimidation tactic, he just coughs because he needs to cough.

Lance rolls his eyes, unfazed by the threat of biological warfare. “Yeah, right. My immune system can take whatever this weak space-cold can dish. Do you know how disgusting a house with five toddlers can get? I’m invincible.”

“You’re not invincible, you're the worst,” Keith corrects, and then he sneezes right on Lance. The shriek of disgust and affront that follows sure is satisfying to hear, before Keith passes out.

 

 

* * *

57.

* * *

 

If Lance was irritating pre-camera access, post-camera Lance was a whole new level of annoyance. He makes a point to try and snap shots with Keith mid-sneeze, or while Keith’s brushing his teeth, or whenever Keith is on the other end of an unfortunately well-placed punch to the gut during training. Most of them are terrible shots, an unfocused mess of blurred colors, but some shots— Lance making a peace sign while Keith's in the background getting beaned in the face with a fistful of mud— are annoyingly well-timed. And Keith isn’t too caught-up in how he looks (he doesn't really care, honestly) but having Lance lord it over him is. Well. It’s annoying. Especially since it comes off as a weird extension of their non-existent rivalry.

Does a win really count if it's some completely one-sided competition with zero actual rules?

Probably not.

 _Definitely_ not.

But, this is all conjecture on Keith’s part, and he’s not really the best person to sift through the incomprehensible wreckage of Lance’s train of thought.

So he asks the people on the castle-ship who are.

“No way,” Pidge says, when Keith broaches the topic. She’s at her work station, Hunk poking around at the other side of it. Despite being elbow-deep in some machine, she was pretty receptive to conversation until the subject turned to Lance speculation. “I am _not_ the best person to ask about Lance’s baffling spaghetti code of terrible life choices. Can you hand me the wire?”

Keith looks around. The entire room is covered in wires. “Which one?”

“No, I mean Hunk.”

“Yeah, got it, here you go,” Hunk says, picking out something from the mess on the table. "About Lance, he's just really... he's really Lance," they finish. "Doesn't really say what he means, except he kind of does? All the time? Plus he lives his life on Berkson's paradox. Like, in any way he can. Conditional probability and selection bias, it’s a mystery how he sees the world. It's kind of up in the air if this is some weird challenge, or if he's just really excited about the camera, or if he just wants to take pictures with everyone. Or all three."

"I feel like it's _mostly_ the first one." Pidge yanks on something right as Hunk plugs something in, sparking a small flame, but nobody seems alarmed or surprised except Keith. So it was supposed to happen, probably. "He's like a peacock," she continues. "Or something? Birds aren't my forte. But I'm pretty sure he just likes taking pictures when he thinks he looks better than you."

"Sounds like Lance," Hunk agrees, and honestly, who would know better than them.

Keith doesn't think of himself as petty— at least, not in the way that Lance is— but he feels entitled to a little retaliation. So he swipes the Altean phone-camera-thing while Lance is halfway through his evening routine— or, "evening" routine, since day and night doesn’t mean much in space— and waits for the perfect moment.

"Has anyone seen my space-phone?" Lance asks when he barges into the common room. His face is covered in some skincare stuff, and he's looking a little ridiculous in his bathrobe and slippers as he pokes around, lifting pillows and flipping over cushions. He shuffles Hunk over to stick his hand into the couch, making a face when all he gets is ancient couch lint. Does the same with the part of the couch Allura's sitting on, but Keith gets out of the way before Lance gets him out of the way.

"I'm surprised you've managed to misplace it," Allura says with an unmistakably dry tone. "Anyone unfamiliar with human physiology would assume it's been fused to your hand."

"Princess, I know you're like ten thousand years old, but man, you sound _so_ old right now."

"There are times I think a toddler would sound older than you." She rolls her eyes, crossing her arms. "You really should—"

"Princess!" Coran calls, bursting into the room. "A moment, if you would?" He runs off before she can respond, sprinting towards what's probably the navigation room.

Allura doesn't seem that bothered, so it's probably not urgent. She stands up, smoothing down the folds of her skirt. "Try retracing your steps," she tells Lance, making her way to the door. "Think about the last time you saw it."

"I could probably just call you," Hunk offers, waving their own phone-thing.

"Hunk, buddy, that'd be—"

"Don't bother," Keith interrupts. Here's Lance, facemask on, bathrobe on, completely off-guard. Basically the perfect moment. “Hey Lance,” he says.

“Wh— you!? _You!_ No! Don’t you dare—!”

 

 

* * *

92.

* * *

 

“That was,” Lance declares, practically falling out of his lion, “the worst.” The only barrier between his face and the floor is Blue, who holds up a paw to catch him despite being just as bad off as Lance looks.

"Yeah," Keith says. There's not much to add; twenty-eight consecutive hours of flying through lasers doesn't leave him in the talking mood. Everyone's fine, just a little bruised from being tossed around in their lions. It was rough. But now it’s over. "Good job out there."

"...You too," Lance says, after a long pause. He stumbles upright, a little unsteady, and they make their way out of the hanger. Despite everyone being exhausted, they can't really just pass out just yet— Allura's waiting for them in the post-mission debriefing room along with the rest of the team. But even _Pidge_ sounded tired over the comms, and Keith's wondering if it'll be less 'strategizing' and more 'impromptu nap session'.

“Hey." Lance fiddles with his phone. "Hey Keith."

“What.”

“Smile,” Lance says, practically crashing into Keith.

“There’s no way you look better than me right now. We both look awful.” Still, Keith can feel his lips quirk up. Despite everything, Lance is as Lance as ever.

“Okay, first of all, I can look awful and still look better than you. Second of all, yeah. We look awful. But hey, we’re alive, aren't we? That’s something to celebrate. A picture worth taking.”

“And you can't stand, can you.”

"Haha, can't stand _you_ ," Lance shoots back, no bite to it at all. It's hard to take him seriously when he's got his arm draped over Keith's shoulder, practically leaning his whole weight against him. Getting pretty close to a guy he apparently can't stand. But by now, Keith knows enough about Lance to know that's just how he is.

 

 

* * *

145.

* * *

 

“Holy crow, did you see that!” Lance yells, whooping over the comms. He’s not the only one— Hunk’s laughing in disbelief while Pidge cheers with absolutely no restraint.

“Nice shot!” Shiro exclaims, and Lance practically glows with pride.

When they all land, Lance immediately leaps out of Blue and heads straight for the remnants of what used to be a giant robot. He snaps several shots in quick succession at a variety of angles like some overzealous tourist, crowing loudly about his decisive victory. Honestly, after the stunt he pulled, after the shot he landed, Keith can’t find it in him to be that annoyed.

“Hey!” Lance calls, waving them all over. “Get over here!”

“You’re not serious,” Pidge says, a little too fond to sound all that exasperated.

“You know he is,” Hunk replies, grinning.

“We’re not leaving ‘til I get a good old fashioned group selfie, y’hear?” Lance waves with even more fervor when he sees Pidge and Hunk starting to run over. “Come on!” he yells, absolutely directing it to Shiro and Keith.

Shiro grins down at Keith. “Well, we can't keep him waiting,” he says.

“We’d never hear the end of it,” Keith agrees, and they pick up the pace, catching up to the rest of the paladins.

 

 

* * *

233.

* * *

 

Space is big. Which is an understatement, and not the best way to put it, but it is. Sometimes it's a comfort, sometimes it's the opposite of that, but right now it's something to vaguely stare at while wasting the night away because of insomnia. Well, "night". And usually Keith wouldn't be wasting anything, especially not time, so. He isn't, actually. He's waiting.

"Are you kidding me," Lance says when he joins Keith on the observation deck, blanket trailing behind him. "There's a perfectly nice planet nearby, but sure, just stare at the empty void. At least turn on a star chart or something." Lance swipes something on the control panel and the window in front of Keith blinks to life, pinpricks of light now dotting the mostly black expanse before him. Each of them have Altean labels attached, names Keith can't recognize, and he knows if he points to any of them a large block of unreadable text will appear. According to Coran, it's all mythology and history about why those specific stars were important for navigation.

Keith wonders how many of them still exist. Sure, ten thousand is nothing compared to the billions and trillions of years a star can live, but still. A lot can change. And who knows if the star was even there ten thousand years ago.

"This side of the deck is pretty useless when we're by a planet. Or, by the day side? The charts are nice, sure, but it's kind of weird how far away space can feel even when we're actually in space," Lance continues, as he sits next to Keith. It's almost the verbal equivalent of white noise, less of a conversation and more of a rambling soliloquy to fill the silence. "Hunk explained stuff about light and whatever, but I dunno, when I was a kid I always thought of it like… Earth, or space. One or the other. Leave a planet, you're in space. And seeing a planet is like, well, we're in space, but looking around feels like we're not _in_ space."

"It's not empty," Keith says.

"Huh?"

"Everything's still there even when you can't see it."

"I mean, yeah," Lance concedes, "but no matter how much is actually out there, that doesn't change the fact that _you're_ staring at a whole bunch of nothing." He side-eyes Keith with something close to suspicion. "You're not going to make this some super deep philosophy thing, are you?"

Keith snorts. He doesn't really think of himself as the philosophy type. “You don't have to be here,” he says. “Aren't you tired?”

“Uh, tired of _you_ ,” Lance shoots back. It's reflex, probably, because he doesn't seem all that committed to any attempt at contention. Hasn’t been for a while. “Also, rude. If you want me out of your awful mullet-hair, you can just say. Be more direct.”

It’s probably the most egregiously hypocritical thing Lance has ever said. Keith rolls his eyes and leans over until his head rests on Lance’s shoulder. “You’re so predictable,” Keith says. It’s the truth, as much as it isn’t. Fitting for a walking contradiction like Lance. No one really knows what's going on in his head, but everyone knows he never says what he means. Except he does. All the time. “You don't have to be here,” Keith repeats, “but thanks.”

“ _Someone_ has to make sure you don't stay up all night brooding.” He says it in a breezy tone, as if he hasn't been keeping Keith company for the past few weeks. The second he found out about Keith’s designated insomnia spot, actually. “Seriously, what would you do without me?”

Probably sit around in quiet contemplation before getting antsy enough to use the training deck to fight himself to exhaustion, despite Shiro's general disapproval of that practice. It's what he used to do. Nowadays he's not so restless that he needs to feel that particular false-equivalence of productivity. He goes to bed after a mostly one-sided chat with Lance, a little later than he should but earlier than he usually does, and... still doesn't get a lot of sleep. But at least he's not getting kicked around by a level one gladiator because he's operating on no sleep and even even less impulse control.

Maybe it's just being around someone that really obviously cares so much— obvious enough Keith's managed to pick up on it— but despite how... _Lance_ he is, Lance is a calming presence. Sure, there's still the constant ebb and flow of bravado he clings to even when it's just the two of them, but there's also Lance casually maneuvering his blanket over the both of them. There's Lance resting his head against Keith's with careless familiarity.

"You should really just say what you mean," Keith says.

Lance huffs a quiet laugh at that. "Yeah," he concedes, surprisingly enough. "Maybe I should."

They sit in comfortable silence, watching the artificial stars shine countless light-years away.

 

 

 

* * *

234.

* * *

 

 

* * *

368.

* * *

 

“Alright,” Lance says, squinting at Keith with some careful consideration. “How about… where does a snowman keep his money?”

“A snowbank,” Keith deadpans, trying not to grin at Lance’s frustrated groan.

“At least let me tell it!”

“Why? There's no point if I know the punchline. Besides, these jokes are so terrible _anyone_ could guess them.”

“Wrong! I’ll have you know my jokes are the pinnacle of comedy! My cousins are always at the edge of their seats!”

“That also happens when people want to leave.” Keith manages to keep a straight face for all of two seconds before Lance's theatrics— an offended gasp, an exaggerated expression of affront, a dramatic hand clutched at his chest— gets Keith sputtering out a laugh he just can't quite hold back, not that he really tries to.

"Aha! There it is!" With that triumphant shout, Lance whips out his phone. He slings an arm over Keith's shoulder, striking a cutesy pose as he takes a couple pictures in quick succession, which just makes Keith laugh even more at just how ridiculous Lance is.

“It wasn't the joke,” Keith wheezes, “it doesn't count.”

“Well, whatever! The rules are rigged! You don't know how funny I am in Spanish.” Lance, ignoring the fact that he was the one who _made_ whatever passed as ‘the rules’, pulls up his photos and looks at the latest one. It's a good picture. Just looking at it is enough to put a fond smile on Keith’s face.

"I'll never laugh at your jokes," Keith says, just for the offended squawk he gets. "They’re just bad. You should quit while you're ahead."

"Nuh-uh, never." And this is usually where Lance would proclaim something ridiculous, like proving how awesome he is and how great his jokes are, but instead, he gives Keith a smile and says, "I like making you laugh." It's like he’s commenting on the weather, or talking about dinner, just some mundane detail of everyday life. "Even if you don't appreciate my amazing sense of humor," he adds, his grin easing towards a cocksure slant. It’s one that fills Keith with a helpless kind of affectionate exasperation, and he should be used to it by now, but this time it knocks him completely off-kilter.

"Lance."

"Hm?"

Before he loses his nerve, Keith leans over and gives Lance a quick kiss on the cheek. Lance freezes up with one hell of a stunned expression, staring at Keith with a hand halfway in the air, like he’s not sure what to do with it. He’s completely speechless for the first time Keith's known him— not just silent, absolutely _speechless_ , even with his soundless attempts to grasp at some rambling thread of thought to fill the air with.

"I like you," Keith says, just in case it needs saying. At the very least, it gets Lance sputtering back to life.

"That's—! No fair, I was gonna— I was building up to it! I had a _plan_ ," Lance whines in spectacularly melodramatic fashion. "Do you know how long it took to convince Hunk to help!? Actually, not that long, but rigging the firewor— wait a second!" Lance cuts himself off, glaring at Keith like he's the one responsible for Lance's inability to keep a secret.

"I'll pretend to be impressed,” Keith promises, maybe a little too fond for it to pass as banter.

Lance still rises to the bait, though. Or, he lets himself be baited. "More like, you'll _actually_ be impressed,” he declares. “Say your prayers, lover-boy, I'm gonna sweep you off your feet!"

“Looking forward to it,” Keith says, as if he isn’t already completely, hopelessly, head over heels.

**Author's Note:**

> when lance goes through with his grand 'ask keith out' plan he does everything EXACTLY as rehearsed.
> 
> "we've known each other for a long time now-"  
> "lance"  
> "-and I feel like there's something between us-"  
> "we're already dating"  
> "-and I want you to know-"  
> "lance we're already-"


End file.
